Watch for These Three Mental Health Trends in 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 10-year data summary trend report notes that 40% of high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness; 20% seriously considered attempting suicide; and almost 10% attempted suicide, according to an article in K-12 Dive. Here are three potential K-12 mental health issues to watch in…
7 Strategies to Fix Chronic School Absenteeism
Educators and public officials across Baltimore City and Maryland know that kids chronically missing school is a problem. The hard part is coming up with a solution, according to a series of stories on the issue published by The Baltimore Sun. Thousands of Baltimore City students missed at least 60 days of school in the…
Cutting Edge Schools Deliver Innovative Practices
Innovative schools share several common themes, according to recent research by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Transcend and reported in K-12 Dive. These schools: Anticipate challenges Maintain consistent school-wide practices Use evidence-based practices to solve problems most important to students and families. Factors outside of a school’s control — such as funding…
Six Strategies for Resolving the Teacher Shortage
eSchool News offers six ways to encourage students to consider careers in teaching, a long-term answer to the K-12 teacher shortage: 1) Offer a career and technical education (CTE) program of study. This is a progression of industry-focused classes that create accessible pathways for students to gain skills needed for college and career success–-and that…
How to Support Language-Diverse Classrooms
One in 10 public school students in the United States is classified as an English learner, according to an article in The 74. Still, many educators feel underprepared to support language-diverse classrooms effectively. Here is some advice for providing a productive learning environment for everyone: 1) Check your own biases Understand and overcome your own…
Using Theater to Help Prevent Violence in Schools
When Michele Hillen-Noufer started NorCal Arts, a Sacramento-based arts education organization in 2020, she was hoping to bring theatre’s transformative emotional power to young people, according to an article in EdSource. The organization works with about 10,400 students in the Sacramento region, including the Sacramento City Unified School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, the Elk…
Struggling Readers Need Support
More than half of the 500 educators surveyed by the Project for Adolescent Literacy (PAL) say middle and high schools lack sufficient time and resources for effective reading interventions, according to an Education Slice brief. Rachel Manandhar, an education specialist, notes: “Many respondents indicated that they are sounding the alarms based on their experience day…
How Social-Emotional Learning Can Create a School Community
“Looking at schools across the country, I see continued challenges to the mental health and well-being of many students and school staff, exacerbated by educators’ worries about ‘saying the wrong thing’ or using the ‘wrong’ materials’,” writes Maurice J. Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the director of the Social-Emotional and Character…
How Absenteeism Saps Teacher Morale
Chronic absenteeism among students significantly affects teacher morale, according to a recent study published in Education Researcher and reported in Education Slice. Chronic absenteeism increased from 15% before 2020 to 28% in 2023. Michael Gottfried, a co-author of the study and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, states: “Absenteeism pulls teachers away from that core…
Tips for Tech-Free Play Away from School
In Indianapolis, the Oaks Academy’s “Million Minutes Challenge,” engages families in the goal of collectively logging one million minutes of tech-free play while away from school — reading, playing games and engaging in creative, hands-on activities, according to the Indianapolis Recorder. Oaks Academy director of marketing and communications Brooke Reeves and parent Alicia Sanders offer…
